St John’s College was Uniware’s first University of Cambridge College client, who installed Uniware’s EPoS and Payments solution in 1997.
St John’s was founded in 1511 and is one of the largest of the 31 Colleges at the University of Cambridge. It has more than 150 fellows, 900 students and 250 staff members.
St John’s College covers a range of subjects in Mathematics, Sciences and Humanities.
Uniware now work with 19 Colleges across campus, covering their function booking and formal hall events, cashless payments across campus for students and staff, plus EPoS & stock item requirements (as of March 2018).
The first of many
St John’s College was the first Cambridge College client who joined the Uniware community in 1997.
The initial EPoS and Payments solution comprised of:
4x IBM Point of Sale
Cash drawers
Customer displays
MSR card readers
Stock control
Meal booking system
Cashless payments
Onsite PoS training and set up
St John's College in 2018 - Upay
St John’s College runs Upay Payments & Loyalty for payment acceptance at the PoS terminals, plus Function Booking & Formal Hall payments.
St John’s College has run nearly 100 events on the Upay application which include Tasting Events, Fellows Dining, Charity Fundraiser Events, Society Dinners and Graduation Events.
Over 1000 students and staff at the College use Upay, making up 8% of the Cambridge University colleges Upay users in 2018.
The college boasts between 6000-10,000 logins to the application per month with customers using a Top-Up system to add funds to their account. 30% of users use Auto Top-Up or Quick Top-Ups to speed up the process.
The Upay app is well received at the College, with 55% using the Upay app and 45% using the website to either top-up or book events.
The Upay event system displays relevant information about the event including location, date, time, dress code, ticket prices and guest ticket prices. The customer is then asked for information on their booking including drink & meal choices for both themselves and any guests permitted. At the end of the process, a special requirements text box is visible for the customer to submit any details they feel is necessary for their booking. This information is then available to the college via reports in the Uniware Cloud back office website or sent via email through the Uniware Cloud scheduled report function.
St John's College in 2018 - EPoS
Reliable hardware for retail and hospitality point of sale
The College now runs 6 Toshiba Point of Sale terminals that accept Upay Cashless, Cash, EFT and Contactless. A handheld HP ElitePad PoS was also added to the estate in 2015 to act as an event check-in terminal for the Formal Halls and Events run at the college. The HP ElitePad can be held as a tablet or placed in its dock for fixed use and charging.
At the forefront of innovation
St John’s College is at the forefront of innovation and regularly host Uniware Roadshows and User Groups in various college locations.
Bill Brogan, the Catering and Conference manager at St John’s College regularly works with catering organisations to innovate catering services across the world. Bill’s role as TUCO Regional Chair for Cambridge (The University Caterers Association), sees him involved in visits worldwide to see how other countries are innovating their catering services with technology.
Recent trips with fellow industry experts include a technology-focused trip to China and a food innovation-focused trip to Copenhagen. Knowledge gained is then shared with the rest of the community via the TUCO magazines & events.
